Navan racecourse, located in Proudstown, County Meath, is a dual purpose course situated 50km north east of Dublin.

Navan hosts 17 fixtures including quality races both on the level and over jumps. The highlight of the flat calendar is arguably the Vintage Crop Stakes (Group 3) in May, a race that is used as a trial for the Ascot Gold Cup by some of Ireland’s leading stayers. Navan hosts a number of Grade 2 national hunt races in their impressive jumps schedule. These races include both hurdles and chases.

Navan Course Characteristics

Navan racecourse is a left handed oval course with a complete circuit measuring around 12f. The straight is 3.5f and is a stiff finish. There is a 2.5f shute into the straight to allow 6f races to be run on a straight course. Navan is considered to be a very fair course and the stiff finish can expose any stamina limitations runners may have.

Navan Top Flat Jockeys

Colin Keane and Shane Foley are the leading flat jockeys at Navan at the time of writing with 55 and 44 winners respectively. Colin Keane has been profitable to follow blind at Navan, producing a Win PL of 3.0. Shane Foley on the other hand produces a Win PL of -129.0 here.

The best Navan strike rate for a flat jockey riding today is heavily influenced by riding for Aidan O’Brien. In the past 11 years Ryan Moore has the best win strike rate of 37.5% with Donnacha O’Brien next best with 17.09%. Colin Keane is not far behind with a strike rate of 16.57%.

Navan Top Jumps Jockeys

Davy Russell is currently top of the national hunt jockey list at Navan with 62 career course wins. He is well clear of any other jockey currently riding.

Patrick Mullins and Jamie Codd have the best win strike rates of any Navan jumps jockey. Mullins has a strike rate of 28.09% and Codd’s strike rate is 25.81%. Neither have been profitable to follow to level stakes though.

Navan Top Flat Trainers

Aidan O’Brien has been the dominant trainer here in the past decade or so with 92 wins from his 402 runners at the time of writing. He’s been very unprofitable to follow though which can’t be said about Ger Lyons. He has the second most wins here (55) in recent times and his Win PL is currently 38.98, a pretty impressive return.

The same pair are responsible for the best win strike rates at Navan. Aidan O’Brien wins with 22.89% of his runners here whilst Ger Lyons’ strike rate is 19.1%.

Navan Top Jumps Trainers

Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins have the most course wins since 2009 over jumps. The pair both have more than twice as many wins as the next best trainer. Elliott is currently the leading trainer with 119 wins whilst Mullins has 109 wins at the time of writing. Both have been very unprofitable to follow blind though, Elliott even more so than Mullins.

The best strike rate here belongs to Willie Mullins, 29.54% of his runners here are successful. Leonard Whitmore is next best with a strike rate of 22.73% and he has been profitable to follow here with a win PL of 19.5.

Navan Draw Bias

There seems to be pretty much zero draw bias at Navan, which is generally considered to be a very fair track. At every distance they race over there is very little between the data produced by low runners, middle runners and high drawn runners.

Navan Pace Bias

Those that race near to the pace can be slightly favoured at Navan both on the flat and over hurdles. It’s not a strong bias though and it’s worth remembering that there is a general bias towards leaders in racing in general in the UK and Ireland because of how races tend to be run. It is therefore less of a course pace bias at Navan and more of a sport wide pace bias.